


turns out i'm not dead after all (that was unexpected)

by bluewritessometimes



Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Bertie Lives (The Mechanisms), Multi, Rated T for language mostly, he gets mechanized :D, he/they for bertie, he/xe/fae/ae for tim bcus. gender, i just didnt want to tag them b/c im not sure how important theyll be, most of this was proofread at 3 am im sorry, side ships r brian/lyf/marius & nastya/aurora, the other mechs show up too
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:48:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27657742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluewritessometimes/pseuds/bluewritessometimes
Summary: bertie's actually not dead! now he's gonna vibe with the mechanisms![look i just. i just think bertie is neat ok]
Relationships: Bertie & The Toy Soldier (The Mechanisms), Bertie (The Mechanisms) & Lyfrassir Edda, Bertie/Gunpowder Tim (The Mechanisms), Minor or Background Relationship(s), Other Relationship Tags to Be Added
Comments: 22
Kudos: 80





	1. floating through space and other painful things

**Author's Note:**

> turns out i'm still terrible and coming up with titles & summaries! fun
> 
> anyways i've had bertie brainrot for the past month so enjoy the product of that
> 
> cws for this chapter: medical discussion/imagery (nothing graphic it's just like. the aftermath of a surgery) & being stuck in a spaceship for a prolonged period of time

It turns out that dying makes your memory quite hazy. 

Bertie can’t really remember what dying felt like, only that it hurt. A lot. And they vaguely remember yelling, and spaceships taking off, but everything else surrounding his death was just… empty. 

He can’t even remember how it happened. 

He does remember what happened afterwards, though. 

They remember waking up in a clean room, mostly empty except for the table he was lying on, and a woman dressed in a doctor's uniform standing in front of them.

She had looked down at them with an expression something between pleasure and amusement. “It’s worked, then.”

“What?”

“I’ve given you a mechanism! And you didn’t die. Well you did die, but not while I was mechanizing you, so I still consider it a success.” 

“A… like a coping mechanism? I already had a few of those, I think. Lost most of ‘em during the war, but-” 

She scowled. “No, a mechanism. A part of your body that’s made of metal.”

“Is that a technical term?”

“I mean, I’m the only one I know who’s used it. But I also haven’t interacted with the larger scientific community in several years, so that could have something to do with it.”

“So you performed this operation alone.”

“Well obviously, unless you except me to have asked-”

“That can’t be a safe business practice. Do you know how many people have died because their operation failed? I don’t, but I think I googled it once and it was a pretty big number, so that seems like something you should be aware of.”

The woman looked like she was having second thoughts about talking to them. “...right. I’ll be sure to take that under advisement. Can you walk?” 

“Like in general?”

“I want to make sure I did alright on the knees. Think I might have put them on wrong.”

“Um.” Bertie slid down from the table and immediately fell over. Well. Guess that answered that question. 

The doctor looked concerned. “Do you think that was due to being disoriented, or an issue with your legs?” 

“How the fuck am I supposed to know?” Bertie gripped the operation table as they tried to pull himself back up. “How long was I out, anyway?”

“‘Bout a week? It took a while to get all of you done. I had to turn pretty much everything except your feet into metal!”

“Wait, I’m all metal?” 

“Except for the feet.”

“Except for the… jesus.” 

“Yeah. I tried to get more of you, but you were already pretty shot to pieces.” 

_“Jesus.”_

“Yeah.”

“Why did you… turn me into metal anyway? I don’t even know you. Are you like, the field doctor or something? We could really use you on the front lines, if that’s the ca-”

“No. I mean, no, I’m not the field doctor. I am a doctor, though. And I mechanized you because I heard you play music.”

Bertie blinked. “Sorry?”

“You play music. I want someone to be in my band.”

“...You turned me into metal…. because you want me to join your band?’

“Well, I did.” 

“You could have just asked me before I died,” Bertie said, ignoring the doctor’s comment. “Would’ve gone over a lot smoother.” 

“Maybe it would have. But it’s too late to change that now!” 

“Guess so.” Bertie pulled himself up from the floor and managed to stand a whole three seconds before falling again, which they considered a success. “So, just so I’m getting this all straight… you resurrected me from the dead?”

“Basically, yes.” 

“By turning everything except for my feet into metal.”

“Yes.”

“How did you know this would work again?”

“It’s worked before.” 

“You’ve tried this before?”

“Obviously. I mentioned my band before, correct?”

“Yes- wait, your band is made of metal too?”

“Yes! Although I wish you’d stop calling it that. Most of them aren’t entirely made of metal, just parts. You were a special case.”

“How nice to know I’m special.”

“Isn’t it?” The doctor smiled. “Now, would you mind lying back down on the table? I’d like to make some minor adjustments to your knees before we proceed!” 

Bertie hesitantly agreed- there wasn’t a good way for them to fight back, in any case. Might as well just follow these strange doctor’s orders. He laid down on the table. 

And when they woke up, they were alone. 

He never found out where the doctor had gone. She wasn’t in the spacecraft that apparently housed the operating room, at least not in the rooms Bertie could find. As far as he knew, they were alone, drifting through space until he died or was picked up by another spaceship, whichever came first.

After a few years, it became clear that neither was happening any time soon. 

There was no food on the ship, but Bertie didn’t really seem to need food anymore- he didn’t feel hungry, at any rate. The same went for water, and exercise, or any other basic human need. They still wanted them sometimes, but his body seemed content to function without them. 

And space is really, really big. The craft wasn’t equipped with any sort of maps or navigation technology (and even if it had been, Bertie had no idea how to use them) so they just had to pick a direction and hope that they weren’t headed into a black hole. Although at this point Bertie was almost tempted to try to fall into a black hole, just to see what it would do to him. 

He tried writing on the ship’s logs for a while, before they realized that there was nothing really to write about. It was just the same thing, day after day- he woke up, they walked around the ship and watched the stars until what felt like evening again, and they tried to go to sleep. Cycle repeats. 

They spent hours staring at the clock in the center of the control panel, watching the seconds tick by as the ship flew deeper into space. 

And then the clock stopped, so he couldn’t do that anymore. 

Eventually the spacecraft lost the last of its power, leaving Bertie in darkness a good eighty percent of the time. (the other twenty percent was when Bertie was passing by a star, during which he was usually too worried about falling into it to properly appreciate the light). 

Bertie resigned to the fact that they were going to die here.

At least he’d survived the war.

He spent most of his time asleep on the operation table, and his waking hours pacing back and forth across the ship, watching the stars twinkle and burn out in the distance. 

Tim was almost certainly dead now. Even if he managed to survive the moon war, it had been at least sixty years since then (probably more, but that was the last date the ship had displayed before giving out) and the radiation must have caught up to him by now. And even if he was still alive, and on the off chance that they met- then what? Tim would have aged, he would have gone on with his life, started a family or whatever ex-soldiers do. And Bertie would be- well, the same they’d always been. 

Everything was the same.

Every single _fucking thing._

Every single day. 

Until one morning, it wasn’t.


	2. bertie gets a headache, among other things

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [slams my head on the keyboard] this took. much longer to write than i excepted GSJSJF
> 
> cws: medical stuff is mentioned [bertie's in the medbay for a bit], food/not having eaten for a while is brought up a couple times, & guns [jonny]

Bertie wakes up in a place that definitely isn’t the spacecraft he fell asleep on. 

For starters, it’s much brighter. He has to bite back a gasp when he first opens his eyes, because of just how much of it there was. The harsh fluorescent lighting seems to be filling all of their senses, making it hard to focus on anything except the light. 

They shut their eyes again, which made it a bit better. 

He tries to focus on their breathing. In and out, in and out, just like his therapist used to tell him. Well, before xe died in a microwave attack. 

Nope. Not thinking about that. 

As Bertie refocuses, he becomes aware of another presence in the room. It’s quiet, but he can hear them humming under their breath- an old sea shanty, it sounds like. Drunken Sailor? Bertie likes that song. They had a pirate phase when he was younger that they haven’t entirely grown out of. 

The voice stops humming abruptly and makes a noise of surprise. “Oh! You’re alive!”

“Mmm. Guess so.” Bertie tries opening one eye and- no, the lights still hurt like crazy. Suppose he’ll just have to guess what this other person looks like. 

“Ashes owes me ten gold bars now,” the voice continues cheerfully. “Which is good, because if you died I would owe them ten gold bars, and I don’t have any gold bars.”

Bertie has absolutely no idea how to respond to this comment, so they just sit quietly and tries opening his eye a tiny bit. 

“Anyways! Pleasure to meet you! I am Baron Marius von Raum, he/him, and doctor of this mighty starship!” 

Bertie assumes this is a cue to introduce himself as well. “Uh. Bertie, he/they, um… not a doctor?”

“Pleasure to meet you, Bertie Not A Doctor! Can I get you anything? You seem kind of… tense. And I am a doctor, after all!” 

“I mean. If you could like… dim the lights, that’d be nice.” Bertie is surprised their sentences are so coherent. He would have assumed that after not talking to anyone for centuries his voicebox would be kind of rusted or something. “‘s… bright.” 

“Oh, of course!” Bertie listens as the doctor walks over to (what they assume is) the lightswitch and after a moment, opens his eyes. It’s still not great, but at least they can see now, which is an improvement on before. 

The doctor is standing on the other side of the room, leaning against a table full of equipment that probably shouldn’t be leaned on, watching Bertie with curiosity. “That better?”

“Mm. Yeah, a bit.”

“Good.” 

“Should you be leaning on that?” 

“Hm?” The doctor turns around, and in the process, manages to knock over several of the things on the table. “Nah, it’s fine. I don’t know what any of these fuckers do anyway.”

Bertie is beginning to suspect that this man isn’t a very good doctor. 

“Need anything else? Food? Do you still eat food? I know this other metal man, he’s my boyfriend actually, and he eats, but I don’t wanna make assumptions or anything-”

“No food yet,” Bertie decides. “Haven’t eaten in… while. Wouldn’t that be a shock to the system or something?” 

“Probably.” The doctor (should Bertie call him Marius? Maybe he’d think that’s too forward) shrugs. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to. I was just suggesting.”

“Wait.” Bertie is just starting to comprehend the second part of the doctor’s sentence. “You know another… automan? Metal man? What do you call-” He waves a hand vaguely at himself.

“You can call him Brian, ‘cause that’s his name. And yes, I do know him! He’s my boyfriend!”

“I think you mentioned that already.”

“Yeah, I know.” The doctor bounces on his heels. “I can introduce you two once he’s back, if you’d like. He ‘n Nastya are fixing up your spacecraft right now.”

“Oh. Thanks, I guess.”

“It’s no problem! They’re both nerds, they like fixing things.”

This actually makes Bertie chuckle a little bit. God, they really have missed the company of other people who weren’t AI and/or trying to turn them into metal. “So you… you said we’re on a spaceship, right?” 

“Yes! The humble starship Aurora! She says hello.” 

“Um. Hello to her too?” Bertie blinks. “I was just asking because I wanted to apologize to the… captain, I guess? Do starships have captains? Um, for intruding on their ship. You really didn’t need to pick me up.” 

“Didn’t need to, but I did want to! It’s been a while since we picked up someone new. And we don’t actually… have a captain, really. She got pushed out an airlock a while back. Suppose you could talk to Jonny, though. Hopefully he won’t get too pissed that you’re here.”

“The captain doesn't know that I'm here?”

“No. The only ones who I told were Lyf and Brian, and I think Aurora told Nastya. Or Nastya doesn't know and just isn't asking questions about the spacecraft she's fixing. Both would be in character for her.”

“...So most of the crew doesn’t know I’m here.”

“A little more than half don’t know,” the doctor corrects, counting on his fingers. “And it’s probably fine. We pick up stowaways a lot, although most of them die pretty quickly.” 

“That’s not reassuring.”

“Oh, don’t worry! You’re not going to die. It’s pretty clear that’s not really an option for you! But I can still introduce you to the rest of the crew if you’d like.”

“Why not.” Bertie pulls themself out of bed and thankfully doesn’t immediately fall down. “At least I can apologize to the captain that way.”

“First mate. And I didn't mean right now. You probably still need to... acclimate? Is that the word? Anyway, you probably still need to adjust to the new environment or something like that. Weren't you in a tiny spacecraft for the past hundred years or something?"

"It wasn't that small. And I don't actually know how long I was there. The clock gave out pretty quickly. What year is it, anyway?"

The doctor tells him.

"Jesus."

"Later than you expected?"

"Much. I was in that spaceship for... almost two thousand years, if I'm doing the math correctly."

"God. That sounds... not fun."

"It wasn't." Bertie stretches their arms out. "Cramped. Really cramped."

"Hmm." The doctor pauses, clearly unsure of what to do next. "Would you like to take a walk, maybe? I can show you the rest of the ship, and you can stretch your legs a bit."

"I thought you said I need time to acclimate-"

"Changed my mind." The doctor leads Bertie out the door before he has a chance to protest. "Come on, I'll introduce you to the rest of our crew."

Bertie quickly discovers that this ship is much bigger than any of the spaceships he’s been on in the past. They knew that spaceships could be big, obviously, because of all the cargo they needed to carry, but he didn’t know it could be this big. 

“What do you even do with all this space?” Bertie asks as he follows Marius (they’ve been told not to call him the doctor, as apparently this brings up bad memories for some of the crew) through the winding halls. Marius shrugs.

“I mean we all need our own rooms ‘n stuff, plus the kitchen and living room ‘n whatnot. Oh, and the octokitten room is pretty big. And the library.” 

“You have a library?”

“Ivy has to keep her books somewhere, doesn’t she?”

“I- I honestly wouldn’t know.”

Marius pauses at a door that reads Captain’s Quarters, although the "Captain" part has been scratched out and reads "First Mate" instead. After a moment's hesitation, he knocks on the door and calls "Jonny! Need to talk to you!" 

There's some grumbling from behind the door and what sounds like a gunshot, and then an unfortunately familiar face steps out. 

Bertie blinks in surprise. "Jonny?"

"That's my name, yes." Jonny stares at Bertie for a moment before making the connection. "Wait- Bertie?"

"Yeah."

"You're... not dead."

"Neither are you."

"Well of course I'm not dead," says Jonny, crossing his arms. "I'm immortal. You, on the other hand, are not."

"Pretty sure you're wrong about that last point, actually," Marius cuts in. "I ran some tests. Well not tests tests, I didn't cut them open or anything, but he does seem to have a mechanism, and it does seem to be able to revive him."

Jonny is quiet for a while. "I didn't know she got more people."

Marius nods. "Well. I guess she did."

"Yeah, well obviously." Jonny turns back to Bertie. "Did you happen to run into a doctor at any point after the war? Short dyed hair, has a guitar?"

"I don't know about the guitar part, but I did meet a doctor right after I... died, I guess. She said she wanted me to join her band."

"That's her, alright." Jonny sighs. "Wonder why she didn't bring you back here."

"I don't know either. She told me she was going to do more work on my knees and then when I woke back up she was gone."

"Huh. Well, ours is not to question why the Doc did the things she did-"

"What?"

"We just have to deal with the problems she left us with. Which includes you now."

"I mean, I'd rather not consider myself a problem-"

"Well I would, and I'm the captain, so there."

"First mate," Marius says.

Bertie has forgotten how much of a prick Jonny could be, and their excitement at seeing a familiar face is quickly turning into annoyance. "Wait, did you say you were immortal?"

"Yep. Mechanical heart. Keeps you going for quite a while, apparently."

"That's his mechanism," Marius explains. "Like your... well, most of you actually."

"The doctor said everything except the feet."

"Sounds about right." Marius lightly knocks on their arm. "Anyways, that's gonna make you functionally immortal for quite a while. Don't need to eat cause of the metal stomach, although you must have already guessed that. And if you do manage to die, you'll be revived within... a minute or two, usually. Ivy ran the exact calculations once but I forgot them."

"'Functionally immortal?' What's the difference between-"

"Doesn't matter." Jonny waves a hand, interrupting him. "We're gonna go see Tim. I'm sure ae will be thrilled to see you."

"Wait- wait, Tim? Tim is here?"

"Yep. Ended up with us after blowing up the moon."

"He blew up the moon?"

"Mm. It was beautiful. We wrote a song about it."

"That is... wildly out of character for xem."

"Not for the Tim I know." Jonny starts to drag Bertie down the hallway. "Come on, let's just get this sappy reunion over with. Marius, go... I dunno, go help Ashes make dinner."

"It isn't Ashes's turn to make dinner-" Marius calls, but Bertie and Jonny are already halfway down the hallway and Bertie can hardly hear him anymore.

The implications of this are just starting to sink in. Bertie's best friend- maybe even more, it was honestly pretty weird back in the war- who they had assumed was dead, should be dead, isn't actually dead and now they were going to go talk to him. For the first time in ages. Also he’s apparently immortal- they’d sort of guessed that, but it feels strange to have it confirmed. 

Also they’re stuck with a bunch of immortal space pirates who seem to have absolutely no morals in regards to murder. 

God, his head hurts.

“So, uh. What have you been doing since the whole… y'know, moon war thing?”

“Mostly trying to find a way to get off the spacecraft I was stranded on after getting turned into metal.”

“Ah.” Jonny doesn’t seem to have a good response to that. “Well. I’ve been here. Wrote a few albums. Killed a couple thousand people. The usual.” 

“...I see.” 

“You wanna listen to them sometime? The albums, I mean, not the couple thousand people I killed. Last I checked dead people couldn’t talk.”

“I- sure?”

“Wonderful! I think you’ll really like them. Most people do. And if they don’t like them I just shoot them, so, y’know.”

Bertie doesn’t know but also doesn’t particularly want to find out, so they just nod along as if they understand everything he’s saying. 

“We actually mention you in one of the songs! It’s the one about the moon war. Actually we wrote a couple songs about the moon war, but that one is the only one that everyone really liked, so-” 

A familiar voice cuts him off. “Jonny? What the hell are you doing on this side of the ship, you never come over here-”

Bertie turns around and sees that yes, it is Tim. Tim, who besides the odd scars around his eyes looks the exact same as xe did back during the moon war. Tim, who- Christ, Tim probably thought they were dead. 

It takes a minute for Tim to make the connection. “Jonny? Jonny, who- who is this, and why do they-”

“It’s Bertie,” says Jonny. “Original version. Well, I guess the 2.0 version considering he’s made of metal now, but-” 

“No- God, there’s no way- I saw you die.”

Bertie shrugs. “I got better?”

“Honestly Tim, you’ve regenerated enough times that you shouldn’t be surprised by this,” Jonny chimes in.

Tim’s voice is shaky as he keeps talking. “I- yes, but- Jonny, Bertie didn’t- he- they died. And didn’t get mechanized.”

“I did, actually.” Bertie holds out an arm. “I mean, I think? I definitely have a weird relationship with death.”

“You could have phrased that literally any other way.”

“Fuck off, Jonny.” Tim hesitantly puts faer hand in Bertie’s. “Is- God. If this is some really elaborate prank, I swear to God-” 

“It’s not. You can ask me, like..., ‘a question the real Bertie would know’ or something, if that would, you know. Help?” Bertie laughs nervously. They’re surprised they sound so calm, to be honest. This whole day has been a bit of a fever dream, so maybe he’s just checked out at this point. 

He’s probably going to freak out about it later, though.

Tim laughs at that. “I mean… you sound like them. You really, really sound like him.”

“I- that’s good? I think?” 

“No, that’s good.” Tim sighs. “Okay. I- I guess it’s really- I think it’s really you. I dunno. I guess it’s not impossible- we never found your body, anyway. So.” 

“So we don’t have to go through It-Cannot-Be-You-My-Love thing? Thank god,” says Jonny. “I hate that trope. Slows down the whole narrative.” 

“Fuck _off,_ Jonny.” 

“Fair enough.” Jonny sighs and pulls out a gun from one of his many belts. (it seems his fashion taste hasn’t gotten any better). “I’m gonna go bother Nastya. You two… I dunno. Do whatever you do whenever I’m not around.” He fires his gun at the ceiling and leaves.

“So,” says Tim.

“So.”

“You’re… alive.” 

“I think we established that, yeah.”

“And… you have a mechanism? Your face, it looks like.”

“Uh. My whole body except for my feet, actually.”

“Ah. That tracks, I suppose. With, y’know. How you died and all.”

Bertie nods in a way that they hope conveys _yep, I totally remember how I died._ “Yeah.”

“Sorry, you probably don’t want to talk about that.” Tim winces as a gunshot sounds from the other room. “Hey wait, how did you even get here? If you were a stowaway from our last planet, that would’ve been a really long time. If I remember correctly. Time’s weird.”

“I was actually on a spacecraft for a… couple thousand years? Since the moon war, basically. I think your doct- Marius. I think he pulled me out.”

“Jesus. That sounds horrible.”

“It wasn’t great, yeah.” Bertie frowns, trying to steer the conversation away from General Misery. “And you’ve been here, right? With Jonny? That must be fun.”

Tim laughs. “He actually can be good company sometimes. But he’s also, you know, like that.” As if to emphasize his point, another gunshot rings out and a voice starts cursing in a language Bertie doesn’t recognize. 

“But there are other people, too. The Toy Solider’s still here, for better or worse. And you’ve met Marius.”

“TS is still here?” This actually manages to cheer Bertie up some more.

“Yup. I can look for it, if you’d like. It’s probably going to be happy to see you.” Tim frowns. “Actually-”

He’s cut off by a voice coming through the speakers. “Dinnertime. And I actually didn’t burn it this time-” Tim scoffs- “so you don’t have an excuse for not coming, and yes I am talking about Nastya.”

“Actually, I guess we’re going to dinner.” Tim intertwines xyr fingers with Bertie’s as he leads them out of the room. “This might be good, actually. You can meet the rest of the crew. And eat. Assuming you don’t mind slightly burnt food.”

“I haven’t eaten in at least a thousand years, I think I’ll be okay.” Bertie smiles. “Yeah. Let’s go to dinner.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun fact: i had an entire end scene written and then i remembered tim can't cry and i had to rewrite like half the chapter gsjsjjf
> 
> u can find me on tumblr @stimtoysolider! i make funny posts sometimes
> 
> comments make me go :D so if ur into that sort of thing,,, comment if u want,,,
> 
> be trans, listen to hnoc and for the love of god wear a mask


	3. stop having knife fights in the kitchen u moron

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ayyy its another chapter! and it only took me like... a month to finish. december has been busy for me, lmao
> 
> anyways ! enjoy bertie being Told Things and then not comprehending any of it. also u may have noticed the relationship tags changed... yeah. i just think bertie maybe deserves polymechs,,,, idk tho. we'll see how it goes 
> 
> cws: food, there's a knife fight going on the background for like 60% of this chapter, background temporary character death [cause. yknow. mechs] i think that's it but lmk if i've forgotten something !
> 
> [also for anyone wondering the pun referenced at the beginning of this chapter has something to do with drumsticks being both an instrument & a type of food, plus the fact that there's someone on the ship named the drumbot... idk. i couldnt make it fully connect but its a pun that exists in theory.]

The dining room, like most of the rooms in the ship, is ridiculously big. If Bertie had to guess they’d say it’s the biggest room they’ve been in so far, which isn’t much of a compliment considering he’s only been in about three. Still. It’s big. 

Marius is leaning against the doorway on the other end of the room, talking to someone in the other room. Bertie can’t quite make out their conversation, but he does hear the words new person and flamethrower and makes the executive decision to stay away from there for the time being.

Tim sighs. “Marius, you better not have made drumsticks again.”

“I didn’t! I didn’t even cook today, Ivy did. I think. Well, Ivy tried to cook but then she and Ashes kept arguing so she stopped and just let Ashes cook on their own. Actually-”

“Yeah, I don’t care. Just as long as no one made drumsticks because then you’re going to make that stupid pun and I hate it so much-”

“I can still make it if you’d like!” 

“Marius, no one likes that joke,” a voice calls from the other room. 

“Oh? Do you speak for everyone in the universe, Ashes? Do you know the sense of humor of everyone who has ever lived now?”

A person- Ashes, Bertie assumes- steps out of the room with their arms crossed. “No, but I know for a fact that no one on this ship likes it, and their opinions are the only ones that matter in this situation.” They spot Bertie and raise their eyebrows in surprise. “Oh. Is this the new person?”

“Uh. Yeah, I’m Bertie.” Bertie sticks out their hand on reflex until they remember Ashes is on the other side of the room and cannot shake his hand because, you know, physics. “Ashes, right?”

“That’s me. Nice to meet you, I suppose.”

“Wait, Marius- you met Bertie first, right?” Tim interjects. “They said you had them in the medbay for a while.” 

“Yep! I pulled him out of that tiny spacecraft.”

“It wasn’t that small-”

“Why didn’t you tell me, then?”

Marius blinks. “Why would I tell you?”

“I dunno, maybe because they’re my _best friend who I thought was dead_?”

“They’re- oh. Oh. He’s _that_ Bertie?”

“Childhood-crush-literal-reason-you-blew-up-the-moon-Bertie,” Ashes clarifies. 

Tim grits his teeth. “Yes, that Bertie.”

“Ah.” 

“We thought you were dead!” Marius says to Bertie cheerfully. 

“Um-”

Ashes swats Marius’s arm. “Don’t say that.”

“It’s true!”

“Not all true things need to be said, Marius.”

“Oh, says Mx. You-Actually-Look-Terrible-In-That-Suit-Brian.”

“Well, he did!”

“He did not! I think he looked great.”

“Well you wear boot belts, you really aren’t in a position to talk about fashion.” 

“Excuse you-”

“Do they argue about this often?” Bertie whispers to Tim as they other two continue to argue.

“Not these two specifically, but we all try to insult Marius’s outfit as frequently as we can. I mean, look at it.”

“I think it looks nice.”

“Christ, not you too.” Tim pinches his nose in frustration. “Where is everyone else, anyway? Didn’t Ashes say it was dinner time?”

Bertie shrugs. “Don’t ask me. I just got here.”

Tim sighs. “Right, well. I’m gonna go drag them away from whatever they’re doing and tell them to come to dinner because I am fucking starving, unless Raphaella is using everyone as test subjects again because I’m not touching her lab with a ten-foot pole. Will you be okay here?”

“I- I guess?” Bertie would definitely not be okay here, but the alternative would probably be going around and collecting violent immortal space pirates, and they would rather not be doing that. “As long as these two promise not to kill me.”

“They won’t. They- I think they know not to touch you. For now.” Tim nods and walks out before Bertie has a chance to ask ae what the fuck that meant.

Bertie sighs and leans against the table as Ashes and Marius continue to argue. They’ve somehow moved from insulting each other’s fashion sense to whether or not owning forged medical licenses makes you qualified to perform surgery. Both of them seem to be in agreement that it doesn’t, so Bertie isn’t sure why it’s even an argument, but then again this is one of the less weird things they’ve encountered today, so he leaves it be.

Other crew members start entering the room, watching Bertie with curiosity. He waves awkwardly at them, but most of them seem more preoccupied with whatever Ashes and Marius are doing, which has now escalated to a full-on knife fight. 

Vaguely, Bertie thinks that maybe they should stop them before someone gets hurt. 

“Hey.” Bertie feels a hand on their shoulder and turns to see one of the crew members- the one with the rainbow hair- standing beside him. “Bertie, right?”

“Um. Yeah, that’s my name.”

“Pleasure to meet you.” The crew member sticks out a hand. “Lyfrassir Edda, they/them. Officially the band’s publicity manager, but unofficially-” They lower their voice conspiratorially- “I run pretty much everything on this damn ship.” 

Bertie laughs and awkwardly takes Lyfassir’s hand. “Nice to meet you as well. I’m Bertie- well. You already knew that.” 

“Yes, Tim mentioned you.” They glance around the room. “He and TS were going to to feed the octokittens before dinner, but considering they haven’t gotten back yet, they either got lost on the way or the octokittens tried to eat them again.”

“I- sorry? What’s an octokitten?”

“Oh, have you not met them yet? You will soon enough. They’re basically like- hm. You know cats?”

“Yeah, I had one back- before.”

“Well, imagine one of those but with tentacles instead of paws, and also a taste for human flesh.”

“...Ah.” 

“Yeah. They’re annoying little bastards. Impossible to get rid of, too. You get used to them.” 

“And they eat people? That doesn’t seem very safe.”

“Not really, but we are all immortal. If they try to eat us we just regenerate. Getting eaten by one is pretty painful though, so I try to keep away from them.”

“Yeah, I’d imagine. I, uh, I got bitten by my pet cat once, and it hurt like crazy. So I’d guess that getting eaten whole by one is… worse.”

“It is.” Lyfrassir nods. “Anyways, that wasn’t the reason I wanted to talk to you. I just wanted to let you know… the Mechanisms can be very- nice, at times but they’re also very… strange, to put it mildly.” As if to emphasize their point, a knife lands on the table and misses their hand by about two inches. They pull it out of the wood, unconcerned. “I’m the newest crew member besides you, and I understand how confusing it can be at first. So. If you ever need help with anything- I’m here.”

“I- thank you, Lyfrassir. I’d really appreciate that. This is… kind of a lot.”

“You can call me Lyf. And it’s no problem.” They wince as another knife whizzes past their head. “Marius, are you trying to hit me?”

“No!” says Marius, very obviously aiming a knife in Lyf and Bertie’s direction. 

Lyf sighs again, but Bertie can tell that they’re hiding a smile. “Whatever. Just as long as you don’t kill anyone and delay dinner again.”

“So this is… a normal occurrence?” Bertie asks, watching Jonny attempt to load a butter knife into his gun.

“I mean, it’s not unusual.” 

Bertie resists the urge to make a joke they’re almost certain Lyf won’t get. “I- huh.” 

“Yeah. Like I said, you get used to it.” They scan the table. “At least they bothered to set the table first. Help yourself to some food, there’s no way everyone’s going to sit down and eat tonight.” They pick up a mug from the table and wander closer to the fight, which Bertie takes as an indication that the conversation is over. 

Well. At least he won’t have to sit down and eat with the crew. Just eat alone and try to dodge their knives.

Hopefully Tim comes back soon.

Bertie picks up a cracker from the table and after checking it for poison- mostly out of habit, but it was probably a good idea considering where they are- takes a small bite. 

As they chew, it occurs to him that this is the first food they’ve had in over a thousand years. 

It tastes kind of stale. 

He finishes up the cracker and stares at the plate it was sitting on. It didn’t really make them less hungry, considering they don’t feel hunger anymore. He would have thought it would at least cause some kind of change, but they just feel… kind of empty. 

It’s kind of shocking, frankly. He doesn’t know what he was expecting- some kind of transcendent experience? To rediscover the joys of food or some shit?- but whatever they were expecting, it wasn’t this. 

It’s not even bad, just… underwhelming. 

Whatever. 

At least it’s not corpsemeat. 

He’s saved from going down that road by a familiar voice on the other side of the room. “Bertie, old chap, a real pleasure to see you again!”

Bertie feels his face breaking into a smile. “Toy Solider?” 

They look up and see that yes, it is the Toy Solider standing in the doorway, with Tim trailing behind it. It looks almost exactly the same as it did back in the moon war, albeit with a lot less mud on its face and a red uniform instead of green one. 

...Bertie’s really missed it. 

The Toy Solider skips over to where Bertie is standing, grabs his hand and enthusiastically shakes it. “I really thought you were gone, old chap! Very glad to find out that you aren’t!”

“Uh, yeah. I am too.”

It smiles- well not really smiles, its painted face is the same as ever- but Bertie can tell that it’d definitely be smiling if it could. “Glad to know you’re adjusting okay, then!”

“Well, I wouldn’t say that-”

“You know, when Tim joined the crew it took ae nearly two weeks to even come out of faer room! Oh, and don’t get me started on-”

“Toy Solider, maybe we could save discussing the way everyone’s delt with the trauma of getting turned immortal for after dinner?” Tim cuts in. “Bertie, have you eaten?”

“I… I had a bit? I’m not really hungry, considering, you know…” He waves a hand vaguely at himself. “Lyf said we could just eat whenever, though.”

Tim blinks, as if he’s only just now registering the fight happening on the other side of the room. “Oh. Yeah, that happens sometimes. I, uh. I could ask them to stop, if you want.”

“I- it’s fine. Unless they ask me to start fighting with them. Wait, are they going to ask me-”

“Probably not. We like fighting amongst ourselves, but- not to be rude, but most of us aren’t a huge fan of outsiders. I mean, you’ll probably go over better than Lyf did considering you’re actually a mechanism, but still. It’s going to take everyone a while to get used to you.”

“So that’s a no, then.”

“Yeah. I’ll probably hold them at gunpoint to introduce themselves at some point- assuming you’re okay with that, of course- but it’s unlikely most of them are going to try to hold extended conversations with you for a while.”

“I feel like you’re giving me instructions on how to deal with a bunch of housecats.” 

Tim laughs. “I mean, you’re not wrong.” 

“Yeah, well-” Bertie pauses. “Wait. Where’d the Toy Solider go?”

“It’s probably around here somewhere. It likes to leave and enter rooms without warning. As you know, I guess.”

“Yeah, it liked to do that a lot back during- well. Yeah.” 

“Yeah.” 

A cheer erupts from the other side of the room and Bertie looks over to see Marius triumphantly holding the body of another crew member- red and purple hair, clutching a book in their limp hands. Bertie’s stomach drops.

“Oh God, are they-”

Tim glances up. “Dead? Probably. She’ll be fine, though.”

“W- She’s dead, Tim.”

“Yeah, and she’ll be revived in a few minutes. Haven’t you figured out that our mechanisms make us immortal?”

“I knew that it meant I didn’t need to like- to eat, or sleep or anything. But I thought that was just because I’m, y’know,” Bertie waved a hand at himself again. They really can’t bring themself to refer to it as _I’m basically a robot now_ quite yet. “Your dead friend, on the other hand, does not appear to be made of metal.”

“She’s not, just her brain. But that’s enough to revive her. And don’t ask me about the science behind that, because I don’t have the slightest clue.”

“...Huh.”

“Yeah.”

“So you just kill each other for fun then.”

“Yeah. What did you think they were doing when they started trying to stab each other in the throat?”

“I dunno! I figured maybe they knew how to do stuff like this without getting anyone seriously hurt!”

“Ha, no. That’s a nice thought, though.” Tim waves at the winged crewmate carrying the dead one over to the table. “We just kind of… kill each other sometimes. A lot, actually. Raph, if you make Ivy regenerate on the table again you can’t have Better Marius for a whole week.”

The winged crewmate huffs. “Come on, you’re no fun.”

“Some of us do not like blood in their food, Raphaella.” 

“Some of us don’t care,” Raphaella says, tossing the corpse to the side of the room and fixing her eyes on Bertie. “This is Bertie?”

“Uh. Yep. Raphaella, right?”

“Yep. Raphaella la Cognitzi, she/her, science officer of the Aurora.” She looks Bertie up and down. “You’re a lot taller than I though you’d be.”

“I- what?”

“Jonny described you as, quote, ‘a weak twink who shouldn’t have lasted half as long as they did.’”

“...And you translated that to ‘short.’”

“Yes. The other bits of the description seem accurate, though.”

“Raphaella, don’t you have science to be doing or something?” Tim says, sighing. 

“No! But I do have a card game to be getting to. Actually- Bertie, you wanna play with us? If you win then I don’t owe Ashes a new lighter and building lighters is a pain. And we promise not to cheat too much.” 

“I. I mean, sure-”

“Great!” Raphaella drags Bertie to where Ashes is sitting, shuffling a deck of cards. “Don’t worry, Tim, we won’t hurt your boyfriend too badly.”

“They’re not my boyfriend-” Tim starts, at the same time Bertie says “Too badly?”

Raphaella ignores both these comments and sits down next to Ashes, pulling the deck out of their hands. “Bertie, you deal?”

The rest of the evening passes in a bit of a blur. Bertie plays at least three rounds of some kind of unspecified card game with Ashes and Raphaella, loosing each time because they never explained the rules and Ashes refuses to tell them. It was still pretty fun though, especially considering the other options were “talk to Jonny” or “join the game of monopoly that somehow involves guns and D&D dice,” neither of which sounds very appealing. 

The other members of the crew come over to introduce themselves over the course of the evening, and Bertie struggles to keep them all straight. Ivy, the one who died earlier and informs him there’s a 57% chance he will also die within the next three days. Brian, the one made of metal who seems like he needs a nap. Nastya, who is apparently in some sort of romantic relationship with the spaceship. The spaceship herself, Aurora, who communicates through Morse code and seems very pleased that Bertie is willing to respond in the same way. 

By the time Tim suggests they go to bed it’s nearly one a.m. ship time, not that it means much now that Bertie doesn’t need to sleep. Still, Tim leads them up to xyr room and offers to sleep on the floor so that Bertie can have the bed, which Bertie declines. They still end up arguing for a while longer until they agree that they can both sleep in the bed, which Bertie doesn’t have any problem with. 

It’s nice, the comfort. 

It’s been so long since they’ve had something like this- obviously he was in the spacecraft for a while, and before that there was the moon war. They specifically remember the last time he slept in a proper bed- the night before he and Tim were shipped off to the moon war. 

They try to trick themself into thinking that he’s back on Earth, that the moon war never happened and that everything is fine. 

It doesn’t quite work, but it gets them to sleep. 

He curls closer to Tim and dreams about the stars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> are they, y'know... [mines waving a hand at your mostly metal body] trans?
> 
> uhh all that good end note stuff: u can find me on tumblr @stimtoysolider, comments are my lifeblood & i appreciate them very much, don't eat lemons while you write because too much citrus *will* give you a stomachache no matter how good it tastes


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